"Poyrazköy" - Armenian Agos Newspaper Rejected as Joint Plaintiff
In the first hearing of the "Poyrazköy" case held on Friday (9 April), the Istanbul 12th High Criminal Court dismissed the request made by Turkish-Armenian Agos newspaper and the Armenian Church to become joint plaintiffs since, according to the court, neither of the parties had suffered from direct damages. The court pointed at the so-called "Cage" case which will be heard in June. The "Cage Action Plan" was supposedly worked out as a coup plan by the Naval Forces, targeting non-Muslims and aiming to charge them of their religious beliefs.
In the 'Poyrazköy' case, 17 defendants, five of them detained, stand trial in the context of a weapons cache found in excavations conducted in Poyrazköy in the eastern banks of the Bosporus in Istanbul. The indictment of the Poyrazköy trial includes the finding of explosives in the submarine at Koç Museum in Istanbul, alleged assassination plans targeting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and a letter by an informant concerned with the "Cage Action Plan".
All 17 defendants attended the hearing at the courthouse in Beşiktaş on Istanbul's European side last Friday, namely retired Naval Commander Levent Bektaş, Lieutenant Colonel Ercan Kireçtepe, Commander Eren Günay, Ergin Geldikaya and Emre Onat as the detained defendants and und-detained defendants Rear Admiral Levent Görgeç, Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Turhan Ecevit, Ali Türkşen, Halil Cura, Ferudun Arslan, Sadettin Doğan, İbrahim Koray Özyurt, Muharrem Nuri Alacalı, Şafak Yürekli, Dora Sungunay, Tayfun Duman and Mert Yanık.
Claims for acceptance as joint plaintiffs and for lack of jurisdiction rejected
In the morning session, Agos newspaper lawyers Fethiye Çetin and Ergin Cinmen summed up the background of the Cage Action Plan, reminding that a CD had been found among retired Naval Commander Bektaş's belongings which included an encrypted list of Agos newspaper subscribers.
Çetin and Cinmen emphasized that the newspaper had received death threats ever since Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, then chief editor of the weekly, had been killed in January 2007. The joint attorneys requested to accept the newspaper to the case as a joint plaintiff in the name of Aris Nalcı.
Joint attorney of the defence, İhsan Nur Tezel, demanded to dismiss the request on the other hand, putting forward that the Agos newspaper had not been involved into the messages sent to Armenian Churches in 2007.
Prosecutor Ahmet Nuri Saraç evaluated the requests after President Judge Vedat Yılmazabdurrahmanoğlu had put them on the record. Saraç pleaded for the dismissal of the demand made by the Agos newspaper lawyers saying that 'considering the case file and the indictment, the defendants were not directly connected with the crimes related to the newspaper's subscribers and the Armenian Churches'.
Saraç furthermore rejected the demand of the defendants' lawyers to transfer the file to the military prosecution, referring to a decision on jurisdiction issued on 27 January 2010.
After a brief intermission, the court decided to dismiss both the Agos request and the demand of the defence lawyers. The case will be continued on 15 April to complete the defendants' defence statements.
Cinmen ve Çetin: Another application for the 'Cage' case
Lawyer Cinmen stated that the court directed them to the "Cage" trial starting on 15 June. Retired Naval Commander Bektaş is the prime suspect of this case. Lawyer Çetin commented, "The court rejected our claim but they left a door open. We are going to attend the trial on the 'Cage action plan' in June and we will reiterate our request to be accepted as a joint plaintiff".
Among the data confiscated from Bektaş was encrypted information including a list of weapons to be used in plans on assassinations, provocative actions and threats towards non-Muslims and on building a cell able to hold 41 people. (EÖ/VK)